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Patriots fan here. I was a big fan of Blackmon coming into the draft. I've noticed he has a measly 13 catches for 119 yards and 0 TDs, after having a very promising preseason. What is going on? Has he shown any signs of improvement? Will he emerge and make an impact by the end of the season? I'd like an analytical view on Blackmon and what to expect.

Blackmon's fault Gabbert never lets the play develop and always checks down?

If Gabbert didn't have a an internal clock that goes off after 3 seconds, Blackmon would have much better numbers. If nothing is open after his clock goes off, he just checks down. Never lets plays develop._________________

Patriots fan here. I was a big fan of Blackmon coming into the draft. I've noticed he has a measly 13 catches for 119 yards and 0 TDs, after having a very promising preseason. What is going on? Has he shown any signs of improvement? Will he emerge and make an impact by the end of the season? I'd like an analytical view on Blackmon and what to expect.

Thanks....

It's a chicken or the egg situation. Is our passing game inept because our recievers arent open or because our QB is terrible? Seeing as we are the 32nd offense in the league the most likely answer is both.

Blackmon has struggled early but he has been getting better I think I can say the general consensus among the fanbase is that one day he will be good. But for right now He is a rookie WR with a QB who just might be awful....maybe._________________

Patriots fan here. I was a big fan of Blackmon coming into the draft. I've noticed he has a measly 13 catches for 119 yards and 0 TDs, after having a very promising preseason. What is going on? Has he shown any signs of improvement? Will he emerge and make an impact by the end of the season? I'd like an analytical view on Blackmon and what to expect.

Thanks....

It's a chicken or the egg situation. Is our passing game inept because our recievers arent open or because our QB is terrible? Seeing as we are the 32nd offense in the league the most likely answer is both.

Blackmon has struggled early but he has been getting better I think I can say the general consensus among the fanbase is that one day he will be good. But for right now He is a rookie WR with a QB who just might be awful....maybe.

I know it was preseason, but football is football. Their timing and chemistry seemed to be well in sync. How did that translate to what is now?_________________[2015 Adopt-A-Patriot]:#17 - Aaron Dobson
Rec:13 Yards:141 TDs:0Status:IR'd. All but gone...

I know it was preseason, but football is football. Their timing and chemistry seemed to be well in sync. How did that translate to what is now?

Injuries to the o-line, and poor play by those asked to stepped up has caused the pass game to be incapable of regularly pushing the ball deep. This is compounded by the fact that Blaine always looks for the short pass, and has done so since college. Now that we're playing against real defenses that will send extra pressure enough to rush throws, the defense has been able to key in on those shorter routes, and because Blackmon isn't a polished route runner yet, he can't get separation underneath when the defense is squatting on those routes.

We saw in out last game for a bit there after Cecil Shorts pushed the safeties back with a few deep routes that Blackmon was able to get open quite a bit until the defense compressed on the routes again.

It's a situation where all phases of the passing game are leading to this. I think with a field stretcher, a QB willing to go deep that a defense would respect and a good o-line, Blackmon would be statistically better, but he has a lot to work on himself, as well.

He has only caught 39% of his targets this year, but that has progressively gotten better as the season has come along. It was downright abysmal earlier in the season, now it's just really bad._________________
Live like you're down 3-1

It's basically a confluence of factors. As i think many expected, Blackmon has some work to do in getting separation at the NFL level, and he does need to clean up some of the drops.

But the problems are compounded by the biggest issue, which is our passing game as a whole. Our line can't hold up, our QB checks down at every available opportunity, and defenses just compress the field and squash any of the short passes Gabbert looks to because they rarely have any reason to concern themselves with the deep ball threat.

There's still plenty of promise to Blackmon and he does look to be getting some of his own housekeeping in order, but it's hard to expect a lot out of him statistically, given the sorry state of our passing game right now.